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Alberta b ticket question

Hey Guys,
Im getting ready to do my B in a couple weeks, just waiting for absa to give me the test date..anywho im wondering how much grinding im allowed to do during the test, i know i can feather my tacks, but the absa test syllabus doesnt say much beyond that..so for those of you that have done it...can you tell me what you were allowed to do with your grinder?
thanks!!

You can grind as much or as little as you want but some testers won't let you grind in your booth. Fred Duffy is one of those testers who won't let you. Not sure if he still works for ABSA. Don't feather your tacks until you need to. You want to maintain as much mass and strength in your tacks as possible. That extra strength will help reduce the amount it closes up on you at the top. Run up for a little more than 45 degrees and stop even if you have lots of rod left. Feather the end of your weld and the near side of your next tack only. Weld that and then feather the next side of the tack and progress that way 45 degrees at a time. You'll be tempted to keep going and try to get the whole quarter with one rod. You can't. You'll run out right in the middle of your tie-in and you'll fail. When you start the last rod to finish it up on the top and you're ready to run into the horizontal part of the weld, feather that tack back a long ways. Try to remove the whole tack if you can and feather into the horizontal part. 99% of guys who fail, fail at the top tie-in on that last tack. After you're sure you got your top tie-in nailed don't stop welding. Keep going. Go another 1/4" or so and then grind the overweld down so it's even with the rest of the root.

That's awesome advice man, thanks so much!!!
You pretty much answered all my questions right there...but one more.. After you put in the root is it best to grind it down a bit to get a smooth place for your hot pass...the way i've been practicing i just pound my hot pass in there and melt out any uneveness....
I'm testing at the calgary hall so hopefully they arent nazis about grinding in the booth...

I always grind my root with a light quick pass with the grinder just to take down the high spots and a hard, heavy pass with the wire wheel to dig into the low spots before running the hot pass. You'll be tempted to grind the root smooth. Don't. It will only result in suck-back if you remove too much metal and you won't end up with enough projection. Feel free to grind your hot pass smooth though. 18 won't dig the way the 10 will so take a good long look at the grinding on the hot pass. Take a small flashlight with you. Look for any tiny cracks (actually they're remnants of the weld laps) and grind them out. Some guys will "cheat" and run two hot passes. They believe the stiffness and rigidity of the extra pass of 10 compared to the soft SA106-B parent will force the stress of the bend a little farther back away from the root and more into the parent. It doesn't work because the press fits the coupon too tight and all they did was make the root harder and less ductile. I think the opposite is better. Dig deeper and fill that groove with as much 18 as you can without sucking the root back.

That trick I told you about grinding the top tack is not as easy to accomplish as it sounds. You have to really be carefull about how far you go. If you grind back too far your tie in won't be at the top anymore and you'll fail for welding downhand. The tester will look for exactly that. He marks the top before you start and he'll compare the tie in position to the mark. Just be carefull is all.

You'll get more work with 146 but it's usually grubbier, nastier work. 496/488 have too many members for the amount of work there is and some guys spend years on the list. That's also partly because they have a higher name request ratio than 146. That means employers can hire more guys by name before they have to take someone off the list. At one time I believe 488/496 was 100% name hire but now I think it's 50/50. 146 is typically more militant, more rah-rah union and they also work harder and play harder. They're just a little rougher crowd in general. I've been both in my years and also had a short stint as an ironworker in the distant past. They can be rough too. I recommend 146 because if you have the moral fortitude you can separate yourself in your private life and you don't have to be as wild as most of them seem to be but you get to work on stuff that's more interesting and diverse. Plus, out of all three I think they are the most safety conscious group and definitely the best riggers and prolly tied with the fitters for being the best welders.